Fountain Scholars

Eneyda Salcedo

In the general profession of design, there are many paths that one can choose to follow. Eneyda use to think that design was linear and only about aesthetics before having the opportunity to expand on her interests. After attending two different universities for landscape architecture and architecture, she soon learned that there is more to design than just thinking about having the most intricate curvy pathways or the tallest buildings. Design means more than aesthetics; it means designing for the future impacts it will have on surrounding communities.

Within landscape architecture, our work is all about designing for the future. However, there is no space to design without a place, and communities are the ones who make a space a place. Therefore, future decisions must be made by actively listening to what communities need rather than designing the next big thing. Eneyda’s objectives as a future landscape architect involve her commitment to designing for the future of urban spaces.

As someone who has lived in Chicago her whole life, she has seen several disconnections between communities and green spaces. She admires the city for how diverse it is in terms of culture, but a big issue is that many of these cultures are segregated. Additionally, most of the lower-income neighborhoods are communities of color. These communities are the ones with limited access to green spaces and are vulnerable to food deserts and gun violence. Her vision for disconnections is to create green ribbons that interconnect segregated neighborhoods. More equal access to green spaces means that more opportunity is given to these vulnerable communities to improve their overall health. Although development in lower-income neighborhoods can lead to gentrification, there are ways to design against it. Growing up in her neighborhood, she had to say goodbye to many friendships because like many neighborhoods in Chicago, residents were pushed out due to rising housing costs. The homes she used to visit are now demolished and transformed into the same modern façade with a significant home value increase. However, situations like this can be prevented by listening to residents on what their needs are. Eneyda hopes to listen in the future to ensure that communities do not feel excluded from design choices.

It is simple to say that her future self should listen to the underrepresented communities, but the same advice goes for them. She has come across many opinions who are against developing an area with green infrastructure especially when there are several areas in the city prone to flooding or extremely high temperatures. The main reason is that many believe that development equates to gentrification. Therefore, her goal as a landscape architect is not only to listen to what communities need but also to educate them on the difference between designing for them and their future rather than against them.

The work of Dr. Charles Fountain led to one of his main goals of providing opportunity and education to many people who are part of underrepresented groups. His vision was to allow more students to be able to study the profession of landscape architecture. In her career path, she has taken advantage of her role as a future landscape architect. She has had the opportunity to learn at the Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign so much about the field and the many paths that she can take. Nonetheless, she has established many relationships through this educational opportunity to advance in her future. Another goal she determined through learning more about Dr. Charles Fountain is that he had a vision on expanding and diversifying the profession of landscape architecture with more minority groups.

Initially, there were few to no individuals of minority groups but his initiative in allowing the opportunity for more students in the field led to diversifying it. As she continues her education in her final year of studying landscape architecture, she will be contributing to the vision of Dr. Charles Fountain by being an addition to enhancing the diversity of the field.

Kai Walcott

Kai would like to become a landscape architect to meet the needs of her community as well as other black and brown communities like hers. While her personal goals and objectives shift as she learns and understands more about herself and the field, there are a few that have remained unchanged. Firstly, she would like to raise community awareness of landscape history, both canonical and non-canonical. Landscape history is significant because it squarely brings to bear the fact that landscapes are not wholly organic, but made and influenced by the sociopolitical and economic climate of the time. Landscapes are built, often by those in power, and thus can reflect the biases of the people who made them. It is important, then, for communities, especially those who have experienced the negative impacts of those biases, to know that like buildings, people have a hand in how landscapes are made and function, as well as how they do not. If we understand this, then we can begin to conceive of them being unmade, remade, or adapted in ways that meet our needs and align with our values and goals.

Secondly, she hopes to advocate alongside communities to ensure they can substantively participate in the decision-making processes of the spaces they hold dear. As an Urban and Regional Studies student in college at Harvard University, she was fascinated by the concept of ‘The Right to the City’. The idea is that everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and ability, should have a right to influence the spaces they occupy. While it is now required by law in many jurisdictions for development projects to have community engagement processes, the legally required engagement strategies are often not enough. Fair and just engagement goes beyond event planning and advertising. Instead, it requires an understanding of positionality, a willingness to acknowledge and reckon with past harm, and a commitment to meeting people where they are in an effort to hear their stories.

Her last goal goes a step beyond the one before – once communities are at the table, she hopes to work with them to envision better futures. Landscape architecture exists at the intersection of multiple fields and, as landscape architects, our ability to visualize information helps us and others to imagine what that intersection looks and feels like. We are empowered by history, art, and the social and environmental sciences to imagine a multitude of futures. We can, therefore, be leveraged as a tool within marginalized communities to render new futures in ways that conform to their tastes, hopes, and dreams.

Ultimately, her goal is to learn about, share with, and design for black and brown communities. But communities are not monolithic. They are a collection of people with varying shapes, sizes, backgrounds, interests, abilities, and needs. It is this diversity that strengthens us, enabling us to think and create from new perspectives. Inclusion, then, cannot be a burden, but a design challenge and opportunity to craft more thoughtful, interesting, and resilient landscapes for everyone, but especially for those to whom this is usually not afforded.
She believes all the goals and objectives she’s outlined above work in tandem with those of Dr. Charles Fountain. As an advocate for diversity and inclusion in landscape architecture, Dr. Fountain believed in and worked tirelessly to ensure the profession’s accessibility to students of color, by introducing them to the field and mentoring them once they had begun their academic and professional pursuits. In her own way, she hopes to continue such a legacy, whether it be in academia or practice.

Angelica Villalobos

Camryn Jae Galvan

Dushawn John

Victor Cizik

Ayana Belk

Kansas State University

Growing up near the dividing line of segregation and disinvestment in Kansas City, Ayana Belk was drawn to landscape architecture as a means to heal her community. Once equipped with a Master of Landscape Architecture degree and Minor in Community Planning from Kansas State University, she intends to start a non-profit in Kansas City to provide a space where youth can discover landscape architecture while improving the Troost Corridor, the dividing line, through participatory design. Her thesis “Equitably Mirroring the Nation: Black Students’ Experiences in Landscape Architecture” addresses the Black students’ journey to discovering and navigating landscape architecture. Much of her work has focused on exploring the barriers Black landscape
architecture students face, intending to offer universities and the profession recommendations for improving the Black experience and increasing the number of Black landscape architects.

Daniella Slowik

University of Washington

At an early age, Daniella Slowik discovered nature’s ability to comfort, inspire, and rejuvenate. Her experience as a low-income, biracial Puerto-Rican woman with Tourette’s Syndrome has granted her an intriguing blend of tics, curiosity, and challenges. For respite and peace, she sought the comfort of the natural world. These memories have deeply influenced her desire to develop landscape-based systems that restore the health of sensitive ecosystems and invite underrepresented communities to experience the therapeutic benefits of the natural world. With the generous support of the CELA Fountain Scholarship, Daniella is thrilled to focus her passions on restoring public and environmental health at several scales. The support from this award will be used to fuel her forthcoming academic endeavors in her graduate studies, where she plans to collaboratively explore the complex interaction of regenerative food production, community needs, and Indigenous systems-based thinking to address global issues relating to climate change, food security, public health, and environmental remediation. Daniella is incredibly honored and eager to carry on Dr. Charles Fountain’s legacy of leadership to cultivate environmental stewardship and social justice and to help shape our practice around the needs of underrepresented voices and ecosystems.

Avery Haynes

Avery Haynes is currently pursuing their Bachelors of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University. They were born and raised just outside of Baton Rouge, LA, and though they do not plan to stay in Baton Rouge, they hope that they can apply the things they are learning to impact their hometown in a positive way. They take special interest inequitable, artful, and plant specific design. They serve as a founder and student co-chair of Landscape Architects for Black Lives, an ad hoc committee within their program for diversity, equity, and inclusion working to deconstruct systemic barriers for Black students within the school. In addition to school and advocacy work, Avery works at a plant nursery in town and as a figure model for painting and drawing classes on campus. They also enjoy singing, dancing, skating, and finding new ways to learn and grow every day.

Ruby Davis

Ruby Davis is a full-time mom, full-time wife, and full-time graduate
student. All these aspects of her life are important to her, and she strives
to balance them in a way that brings her a sense of success. As a mom
and a wife, she continues to show her family that even when life creates
obstacles any dream is achievable if you keep going. In 2014, she was
diagnosed with breast cancer while working on her educational goals. It
was nearly impossible for her to get through that stage of her life, but
she didn’t give up and is now progressing successfully through life and
school. Her journey of adversity continues to teach her that many
people are suffering in different ways, and she is willing to dedicate her
life to helping them. She believes in not just seeing and sympathizing
with struggle but using one’s power to act. So, as a Landscape
Architect, she will engage with communities that have been overlooked
and work with them, designing space representative of the people who
work and live there, bringing a sense of wellbeing and over health to
their communities.

Jade Durand

Jade Durand is a fourth-year Bachelor of Science in Landscape
Architecture Candidate at Arizona State University. A first-generation
American who was exposed to different cultures from a young age,
Jade was born in New York City, raised in Dominica, Anguilla, and Sint
Maarten, and has returned to live in the US. Through her experiences,
she learned to appreciate the history, culture, tradition, landforms, and
architecture of a place at a young age. She is intrigued by the
connections of the natural and built environment at the local scale to
regional natural environments and their effects and influences on all
communities. Jade has interned at Another Ard Production, an urban
design firm, where she developed a deeper passion for designing
strategic solutions that achieve social, economic, and environmental
justice. During her time at Arizona State University, she has served as
the 2021 Event Coordinator for the ASU Student Chapter of the
American Society of Landscape Architecture (ASLA), in that role she
had the opportunity to help 20 Landscape Architecture students from
ASU attend the 2021 ASLA Conference in Landscape Architecture in
Nashville. The enthusiasm of the ASU students led to their recognition
winning first place in the annual ASLA College Tail Gate Event at the
Conference, awarding 25 students to attend the conference for free in
2022.

Chadwick Bowlin

Chadwick Bowlin is a Master in Landscape Architecture I and Master in Urban Planning concurrent degree candidate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Academically and professionally, he is interested in the ways that landscape architecture can be used as a tool to design socially equitable, responsible, sustainable, and resilient cities for all. He hopes to open his own landscape firm one day. Currently, Chadwick is the nominated chair of the MLA Student Diversity Committee, which is part of a larger committee in the landscape architecture department that seeks to create a more diverse and inclusive pedagogy at the GSD. When he isn’t in studio or working, Chadwick enjoys water coloring, photography, and exploring new parts of the city. He is from Sacramento, California.

Jaline McPherson

Jaline McPherson is a third year Master’s in Landscape Architecture Candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. As an avid artist, Jaline is interested in the inclusion and celebration of minority perspectives through a visual medium. Jaline believes that landscape architecture should be collaborative in order to celebrate, heal, and create successful communities. Before attending Harvard, Jaline worked professionally for three years as a project designer for SFCS Architects in Roanoke, VA, where she developed a desire to create inclusive environments that celebrate histories and narratives of social equity. During her time at the GSD, she has served as co-chair for the 2019 Black in Design Conference, which explored pathways to liberation through a design lens. Jaline currently serves as president for the African American Student Union at the GSD and has co-authored student publications advocating for diversity and increase representation within the fields of landscape architecture and design.

Anjelyque Easley

Anjelyque Easley discovered landscape architecture while in middle school, once discovering her passion, she attended the Charter High School for Architecture and Design in Philadelphia to further her enthusiasm for art and design. Anjelyque earned her Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree in 2020 from The Pennsylvania State University.She is currently pursuing her Master of Landscape Architecture degree at The University of Texas at Arlington and intends to continue her education to further earn a PhD. The primary goal of her education is to reframe the narratives of Black landscapes throughout history with public policy in order to develop management guidelines and to gain a deeper understanding for the acknowledgment of Black landscape documentation in the field of landscape architecture. She aims to direct her research to enlarge the discourse of landscape history and to encompass the broad range of Black culture, specifically focusing on black burial site preservation.

Gabe Jenkins

Gabe Jenkins is a fourth year landscape architecture student at Clemson University from Orlando, Florida. He is multi-ethnic student whose diverse upbringing has significantly shaped his passion and experience around design. Much of his work in landscape architecture focuses on creating change and impact for persons of color and the betterment of people. He uses design as a medium to not only express his ideas around making a difference but to also enhance communities to be more inclusive and sustainable. Gabe interned with the MASS Design Group in Rwanda where he worked on a design with the Rwanda Institute of Conservation Agriculture and mentored local students in the Kigali area about design. In his studio projects, Gabe incorporates extensive research of cultural communities, investigating history, geography and people. He utilizes this information to tell a unique story of place that serves to both inform and empower marginalized people.

Whitney Barr

Whitney Barr, PMP is currently an MLA student at the University of Georgia, a USDA Sustainable Food Systems National Needs Fellow, and the first recipient of the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s scholarship for Inclusive Community Design. She is a Spelman College alumna and was a 2013-2014 Fulbright Researcher in Seoul, South Korea. Before UGA, she most recently worked as a digital marketer and urban gardener within Atlanta’s food space. Whitney’s personal health journey led her to embrace food as medicine and food sovereignty. Her thesis is currently entitled, “Designing for racial healing: (How) can heritage crop landscapes offer a physical design response to plantation futures on Sapelo Island, Georgia?” Post-graduation, she plans to advocate for food and environmental justice through landscape design, policy reform, and urban planning. Whitney also looks forward to running her own medicinal plants boutique farm business.